Mass Effect Series, the big decisions

[FaxModem1]

So, if you've played Mass Effect 1 and 2, you've had to make big decisions, and supposedly, those will affect your playthrough in Mass Effect 3. So, which did you do? And do you consider any of the consequences from 1 or 2 to be BS?

There's

In 1, there's:
1. Sparing the Rachni/Killing off the Queen
2. Sparing the Asari on Feros/Shooting her in the head.
3. Kaidan dies/Williams dies.
4. Saving the Council via sacrificing several Earth ships/sacrificing the council so there are more ships to fight Sovereign.
5. Udina/Anderson as Council member/leader.

In Mass Effect 2, there is really only one or two decisions aside from upgrading the ship fully, gaining loyalty of everyone, and rescuing your crew as fast as possible.

1. Keep the Collector Base/Destroy the Collector Base



So, what decisions did you make and how do think they will pay off?

[DPDarkPrimus]

You forgot about whether or not you kill Wrex on Virmire.

ME2's decisions are mostly who is left alive at the end.

[The Vortex Empire]

Well, with the save I consider my canon one, I spared the rachni, spared the asari, let Williams die (because she's a xenophobic bitch), saved the council, let Anderson be a council member, saved Wrex, destroyed the base, and everyone made it through alive.

[Mr. Tickle]

ME2's decisions are mostly who is left alive at the end.

Well you had the big decision at the end about what to do with that Collector thing, couldn't you either blow it up or leave it for Cerberus.

Plus you could decide what do with the Geth couldnt you I think, as part of Legion's mission, I forget now. Oh and something else to do with curing Wrex's race too with that doctor guy, can't remember if that had a choice involved or not.

[Luke Skywalker]

You forgot about whether or not you kill Wrex on Virmire.

One problem that I forssee is that the Paragon option will always benefit you while the Renegade option brings negative consequences. For example, they're probably going to give you a bonus if you saved the Queen, but no penalty for doing so/bonus if you did not, meaning that the Renegade option is worthless. Or saving Wrex giving a bonus while not saving him gives no compensation (I had enough Paragon points for the "blue" option, but decided to pick a non-blue option because I liked the dialog option. I didn't realize that it was my last chance).

ME2's decisions are mostly who is left alive at the end.

Which brings up the question as to whether or not any of them will play a major role in ME3. They cannot play too major of a plot role, because that would mess things up for the person whose crew died.

[2000AD]

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Save_File_Transfer

Boom, big list of what the ME1 decisions are and speculation on ME2 decisions.

[Stofsk]

ME2's decisions are mostly who is left alive at the end.

Well you had the big decision at the end about what to do with that Collector thing, couldn't you either blow it up or leave it for Cerberus.

Plus you could decide what do with the Geth couldnt you I think, as part of Legion's mission, I forget now. Oh and something else to do with curing Wrex's race too with that doctor guy, can't remember if that had a choice involved or not.

Both required a choice, definitely. I am replaying ME2 right now and although I haven't come up to either loyalty mission yet, both had a decision that you made which was obviously of importance. Another one I believe is Tali's loyalty mission as well. Potentially every decision will come with a pay off in ME3, even the smallest ones. Who knows, but those ones from the loyalty missions seem obvious to me.

Well, with the save I consider my canon one, I spared the rachni, spared the asari, let Williams die (because she's a xenophobic bitch), saved the council, let Anderson be a council member, saved Wrex, destroyed the base, and everyone made it through alive.

Everyone hates on Ash, and while it is true she starts off prejudiced to a degree, it does actually follow logically from her family backstory as to why. You can influence her to become more enlightened about alien races if you follow the paragon path, and the end result is she becomes way more tolerant. At the end, I had her in my party as well as Liara. I always have Liara because it makes sense to bring along the prothean expert on Illos. I've played through ME a LOT of times, Liara has always - ALWAYS - implored me to take the sacrifice and save the Destiny Ascension, while the 2nd squadmate was the one to advocate ditching the council to focus on sovvie. Well imagine my surprise when this time around it turned out to be Ash who was talking about how humanity needs to do its part to save the council, and fucking Liara was telling me to ditch the bitches.

Anyway the point is, you can influence the two human squadmates with your philosophy/morality. Everyone hates on Kaidan for being bland, but nobody calls him a xenophobe. Guess what? You can renegade him up and suddenly he'll be all 'fuck the alienz'.

You forgot about whether or not you kill Wrex on Virmire.

One problem that I forssee is that the Paragon option will always benefit you while the Renegade option brings negative consequences. For example, they're probably going to give you a bonus if you saved the Queen, but no penalty for doing so/bonus if you did not, meaning that the Renegade option is worthless. Or saving Wrex giving a bonus while not saving him gives no compensation (I had enough Paragon points for the "blue" option, but decided to pick a non-blue option because I liked the dialog option. I didn't realize that it was my last chance).

I'm totally fine with paragon decisions having ultimately no negative consequences, while the renegade ones will. The way I see it, in these sort of games where morality is simplified into 'good/bad' scales, choosing the good is the long view outlook with the short term penalty. I can either do the paragon thing and disrupt the defences on the base on Virmire, for instance, or I can do the renegade thing and leave the salarians to shoulder it. If I do the former, I have more resistance from the geth (supposedly, except ME1 is so easy geth resistance is laughable) BUT Captain Kirrahe survives. If I do the renegade thing he doesn't. Who knows if Captain Kirrahe won't have an impact later on in the story? His final words to you should he survive and you speak to him after the mission on the Normandy, is 'I hope we work again sometime soon, Commander.'

Now I have problems with the way bioware and most other cRPGs handle morality. It's obvious paragon is the 'good guy' path while renegade is the 'lol i'm an asshole' path. One thing I find supremely irritating is how they even colour-code it for everyone's benefit. Oh being a nice guy means take the blue dialogue option? Great! Being the bad guy is the 'angry red' option? Wow, thanks for the help! They also always appear on the same spot on the dialogue wheel. Whereas I do like the idea that your decisions have consequences, and thus you don't know whether or not a decision was good or bad until the consequences have caught up with you. I am hoping that saving the rachni queen for example, has good consequences because that seems obvious to me that that was the intention (I seriously do not see how bioware could advocate genocide as having a favourable result should you pick the renegade option). Spoiler

But on the other hand, apparently there are screenshots of rachni-husks or enemy rachni in ME3, that's something I've heard but haven't seen, which could be an indication that saving her makes things harder, or that you have to save the rachni again.

[Nephtys]

Depends on what game, really. Who's to say that shooting Wrex doesn't save a lot of heartache in the future? Or especially the Rachni.

The asshole path sometimes works in these games, like in Dragon Age 1, where mercy is not a virtue most of the time.

[Stofsk]

lol at what point is being an asshole in Dragon Age: Origins a good thing? You mean like when you despoil the sacred ashes, which often forces a party break depending on who you brought with you? Or when you side with the werewolves against the elves, which results in the latter's massacre and the former's doom as the curse they're under never gets lifted? You can be an asshole and kill the circle, and that has the consequence later in Redcliffe where you either have to sacrifice Connor or Isolde. If you saved the circle then you can save both mother and son.

Holy shit Dragon Age is even more like the typical cRPG with regards to simplistic binary morality choices than ME is. Literally the only example I can think of where DA:O broke away from that mold, however briefly, was in Orzammar if you sided with Bhelan. The obvious bad guy turned out to be good for the kingdom in the long term, as opposed to the obvious good guy in Lord Harrowmont. That was a great little consequence which isn't really all that obvious from the information you get upon your visit to Orzammar. But I can't really think of any other example like that.

[DPDarkPrimus]

It's already been stated that BioWare is working to make sure that players aren't just penalized for having characters die in ME3, but that there is alternate content that folks would not otherwise see, depending on who died.

[PeZook]

I have two Shepards: Bitch Shepar and Goodie Shepard.

Bitch Shepard killed the Rachni (because...well, genocidal psycho arachnoids now say it wasn't really their fault! Really! THEY PROMISE TO BEHAVE!), shot the Asari on Feros (I'll be good now I promise! Just don't hurt me!), left Williams to die (Because it was more important to ensure the nuke went off than saving her),sacrificed the council (Uhh...yeah, it's not like preventing galacticide was on the table...EVERYONE is expendable if it achieves that goal), set up Anderson for the council, saved Wrex, kept the Collector base, sold Legion to Cerberus. Everyone survived the suicide mission.

Goodie Shepard basically went all Paragon in all possible decisions. The result? Samara died in the suicide mission.

Bah. Bitch Shepard was better

[PREDATOR490]

There's In 1, there's:
1. Sparing the Rachni/Killing off the Queen


2. Sparing the Asari on Feros/Shooting her in the head.
3. Kaidan dies/Williams dies.
4. Saving the Council via sacrificing several Earth ships/sacrificing the council so there are more ships to fight Sovereign.
5. Udina/Anderson as Council member/leader.

In Mass Effect 2, there is really only one or two decisions aside from upgrading the ship fully, gaining loyalty of everyone, and rescuing your crew as fast as possible.

1. Keep the Collector Base/Destroy the Collector Base



So, what decisions did you make and how do think they will pay off?

I'm going to say none of it will matter. All of the deicisions from ME1 got swept into being cameo appearances so I highly suspect it will be the same with ME3. Trying to account for all variations across one game was beyond ME2, trying to do it across two games strikes me as something they will not do. I suppose you MIGHT see some 'extra' resources or 'extra' skillpoint, blah blah blah but I somehow doubt a massive Rachni army is going to appear out of nowhere to fight beside Shepard or Legions Non-Heritic geth.

From a cereberal point of view despite if not going to pay off later I went with the following:

Keep Wrex alive - You now have a powerful Krogan on your side that can potentially bring them on your side in a fight against the Reapers. Throw in Grunt from ME2 and you have two respected Krogan. Especially if you kill the Thrasher Maw. Something that only Grunt and Wrex have achieved.

Mordin - Keep the genophage research. Wrex wanted to cure his people and you have data that could potentially do it AND the scientist that helped develop it. Gets bonus points with Wrex and calls back nicely to ME1 where it was a major contention between Shepard and Wrex. Cure the Krogan and you have a massive army with two of your loyal shipmates at the head to back you up.

Legion - Restore the Heritic code and earn his loyalty. Potentially bring the Geth on your side to fight the Reapers

Kaiden / Williams - Useless

The interaction in ME2 even when they are your former romance option makes it apparant these two are effectively worthless since they think your a traitor and are soldiers.
Personnally, Kaiden is a better option since he dosent bug me with his whining voice or xenophobia. Biotics are more vaulable anyway,

Rachni Queen - Saved it and thus have a potentially ally that could assist later. That said, the Rachni are still around ANYWAY so I highly suspect an appearance will occur in ME3 but it will be a similar situation to Wrex. If you saved her it will be the Rachni Queen you know. If not it will be another Rachni Queen.

Saving the Council - I let the fuckers die originially but after playing ME2 it becomes rather apparant saving them is the best option. Even if they are completely worthless and the Turian needs a good ass kicking. It makes the other races more amicable and more likely to support Sheppard.

Anderson for Council - Fuck Udina. Even if it might be wiser to have him on the council the guy is an equal dick to that Turian so fuck no am I going to put up with his shit. Ironically ME 2 sidelines Udina anyway. Since a war is coming with the Reapers, it makes sense to have a military man as a councilor and someone who wont scurry like a rat when the shit hits the fan like Udina would.

Collector Base - Keep it for it's technology and potential use against the Reapers. That said, I'm not happy putting it in the hands of ILM. Incidentally, it allows the Normandy access to their own secret base that noone else can get to since the only way to get to that base is via a Reaper device. Everyone on the crew bitch and whine it is a bad idea even when some actually say you should SAVE the base at the decision point.
Even if the bigger tech is beyond use. Salvaging Collector guns and equipment would still be worth grabbing.


As for the actual crew - Joker will return and maybe a brief appearance from them all in turn but I highly doubt the majority will disappear into the shadows in a similar vein as they did in ME1. Maybe a few one shot missions where you fight with them briefly but I would expect a brand new bunch of recruits that come into the fold with a few stragglers from other games. Miranda, Tali and Garrus come to mind as being the most likely candidates.

Kasumi - Was a hired theif from DLC - Expect her to be written out
Samara - Expect her to run off back to Asari space on errands of 'Justice'
Jack - Expect her to disappear into Omega and become the new Aria or something
Liara - Becomes the Shadowbroker
Ashley / Jacob / Kaiden - Expect them to be punted off to be frontline soldiers. Wouldbt be surprised if they made the 'expendable' list for getting killed in the game
Grunt - Expect him to join with Wrex and fight with the Korgans.
Legion - Goes back to join the Geth
Mordin - Goes off to help at Omega or something


That said, it is an amusing prospect of having a Normandy filled with every team member from all the games but then I find it kinda annoying to have a ship full of 'Elite' team members that do nothing while only 2 of them actually come with you. I would have found a situation like ME2 end where you can assign your team to different roles to achieve different objectives far more useful for assembling a massive team.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Everyone is going to be showing up in more capacity than you might think, Predator, though obviously not everyone will be a squadmate again.

Garrus is already confirmed to be a squadmate if he survived, and Mordin will be heavily involved in a mission, as will Legion. Hell, Legion will probably be there regardless of what you did with him in ME2, since he'll just have reverted to his last save state if you sold him off or he died in the suicide mission.

I'm trying to avoid more ME3 info from here on out but from what's been shown it seems they're making a concerted effort to make everything from ME2 more present in ME3 than ME1 stuff was in ME2. Anyone who was a love interest in ME2 is also guaranteed to be around for some amount of time, since they said if you romanced someone in ME1 and then someone else in ME2 there will be a conflict between the characters in ME3.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

From a pessimistic view point, ME2 already details their approach to player choice.

Big issues have some story concequence (Counsel choices, being the big one.) but fuck all effect in terms of the next game's layout. Minor issues, if having any reward in the next, will have a cameo or a generic taking their place. (Wrex, that Asari) While choices with no consequence/reward will have a minor cameo, if you took the right path. (Rachnii queen)

Despite their claims to the contrary, this is exactly what I'm figuring for the third installment. It's been true of the whole series, in a way. Very, very little of narrative impact was actually decidable by the player.

In the first, I can only think of one section of content that was entirely side-steppable by the player if they wished. That being the Ice Planet, Ferros I think, where you had two or maybe three choices on how to get the key you needed.

There was no real gameplay or narrative consequence for any choice anywhere else in the game. Not even on Virmire while the Salarians Hold. The. Line. Yeah, yeah, Wrex... but all that really happens is you lose a meaty damage dealer. And absolutely nothing of consequence comes of it in ME2, where you lose out on a tiny bit of chummy dialog, before doing exactly the same things as if he had survived.

[Jordie]

My main Shepard is a Paragon. In the first game I made paragon choices but used the renegade persuasions when they were available and appropriate.

Anderson for Council - Fuck Udina. Even if it might be wiser to have him on the council the guy is an equal dick to that Turian so fuck no am I going to put up with his shit. Ironically ME 2 sidelines Udina anyway. Since a war is coming with the Reapers, it makes sense to have a military man as a councilor and someone who wont scurry like a rat when the shit hits the fan like Udina would.

That choice doesn't matter, Anderson quit politics and let Udina take the lead in the third novel.

Liara and Ashley/Kaiden return as squad members, along with Tali and Garrus if they survived. Ashley/Kaiden are made a Spectre and in your squad. There's only one new squad member so far.

[White Haven]

Liara's more or less a guarantee as a major role in ME3, as she's the only party member from both games that never, ever dies. They can write her in a key role without having to worry about what to do if she's dead.

[Stark]

Despite their claims to the contrary, this is exactly what I'm figuring for the third installment. It's been true of the whole series, in a way. Very, very little of narrative impact was actually decidable by the player.

To be frank, even if the third game does it in a better or more meaningful way, who even cares? If they backported significance into xyz action from the first game that was ignored then and since, will it suddenly be 'ok' or 'good' that its mentioned or significant again?

Taking Bioware's word for what will be in ME3, which stuff they said was 'in' ME2 turned out to be game-irrelevant emails, seems particualrly optimistic.

[Luke Skywalker]

I'm totally fine with paragon decisions having ultimately no negative consequences, while the renegade ones will. The way I see it, in these sort of games where morality is simplified into 'good/bad' scales, choosing the good is the long view outlook with the short term penalty. I can either do the paragon thing and disrupt the defences on the base on Virmire, for instance, or I can do the renegade thing and leave the salarians to shoulder it. If I do the former, I have more resistance from the geth (supposedly, except ME1 is so easy geth resistance is laughable) BUT Captain Kirrahe survives. If I do the renegade thing he doesn't. Who knows if Captain Kirrahe won't have an impact later on in the story? His final words to you should he survive and you speak to him after the mission on the Normandy, is 'I hope we work again sometime soon, Commander.'

Now I have problems with the way bioware and most other cRPGs handle morality. It's obvious paragon is the 'good guy' path while renegade is the 'lol i'm an asshole' path. One thing I find supremely irritating is how they even colour-code it for everyone's benefit. Oh being a nice guy means take the blue dialogue option? Great! Being the bad guy is the 'angry red' option? Wow, thanks for the help! They also always appear on the same spot on the dialogue wheel. Whereas I do like the idea that your decisions have consequences, and thus you don't know whether or not a decision was good or bad until the consequences have caught up with you. I am hoping that saving the rachni queen for example, has good consequences because that seems obvious to me that that was the intention (I seriously do not see how bioware could advocate genocide as having a favourable result should you pick the renegade option). Spoiler

But on the other hand, apparently there are screenshots of rachni-husks or enemy rachni in ME3, that's something I've heard but haven't seen, which could be an indication that saving her makes things harder, or that you have to save the rachni again.

But the problem is that the "bad" options don't benefit you AT ALL, not even in the short term. Shooting Wrex does jack all to benefit you, killing the Queen does jack all to benefit you (notice how the Turian Councillor yells at you regardless of what choice you make) and destroying the cure is probably going to do jack all to benefit you.

[Stofsk]

So? That's a good thing. We're talking about consequences, and while Stark may well be right (we haven't seen ME3 yet so we don't know what the consequences will be but if ME2 is to be believed it may just be a token reference), we still don't know if a renegade or paragon decision ultimately ends up good or bad.

Separating good/bad choices into 'what benefits me right now' is pretty much the problem with simplistic morality systems in Bioware and other games. Taking the renegade path in ME1 and 2 is about solving a problem then and there, often violently - THAT's the 'short term benefit', not some stupid reward like credits or a lame magical doodad, which is the kind of thing you find in other cRPGs. All your examples: Wrex, the rachni queen, keeping or destroying the genophage cure research - all of these are 'problems' that you have to deal with and the benefit to dealing with them quickly is that they're no longer problems you have to worry about later. Or so you think. So if you kill Wrex, the benefit is he's no longer pointing a gun at you. But no-one yet knows what the long term consequence may be. Wrex might be pivotal in gaining the support of the krogan in ME3. Another example: what's the difference between saving the council at the end of ME1 or sacrificing them? In ME2, it's barely worth consideration as either option isn't terribly different and we only have hints as to what it might be, but the pay off will be in ME3. That's when we will see what the consequences were, good or bad.